Dusk Before the Dawn

The race is over, the soreness is gone (well, almost), and my first ever half-marathon (at the San Antonio Rock and Roll Marathon) is in the past. Bert and I crossed the finish line at 1:56:57, an 8:56 per mile pace, beating our 2 hour goal and finishing about 2,000 out of 20,000 half-marathon runners. Congrats to my friends Everett and Michael who also completed the run, and all of the other participants. As someone who has in the past played sports like basketball and rugby (i.e., sprint, stop, sprint, stop…or, as one of my so-called friends called it, sprint, stop and watch others, sprint, stop and watch others) running 13 miles was a daunting event.

So what did we learn from this latest undertaking, this latest accomplishment struck so resoundingly from the bucket list:
- San Antonio cops never change; the starting line was in Breckinridge park and the exit at Hildebrand was backed up two miles. I suggested to John, who was dropping Bert and I off, to pass the line and pull over on the freeway, and we would walk down Hildebrand. But one of SA’s finest motorcycle cops pulled John over, telling him he was going to write him a “big ole ticket”. He motioned Bert and I back, telling us to get in the car or we would all get tickets. “Go down to St. Mary’s exit, there’s no one there, you’ve done this before.” We hadn’t done this before, but he was right…there was no one at that exit, and we two plus several hundred others walked part the ever-tempting Bombay Bicycle Club bar to the 40 some odd starting corrals on Broadway. (more…)

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Thanks to Paul Levinson and Robert Flynn for the excellent quotes, and Kenny Manchester for a great cover. The novel should be available in December.

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For the fourth year in a row, I’ll be at the Trinity University Alumni book signing on campus in Ruth Taylor Hall. For the third year, my partner in crime (and excellent author) Robert Flynn and I will share a table, which is dangerous just in the intent. Also for the fourth year, beer drinking and mexican food consumption will commence shortly after the book signing (or as Bob calls it, being ignored by non-readers) ends.

My next novel will not be ready in time for the signing (I will have information on it), but Bob’s latest Echoes of Glory will be there. Bob was the writer in residence at Trinity about a hundred years ago, and has won many awards for his Texas and Vietnam based fiction, and for his excellent collection of humorous essays. I’ve read Echoes of Glory and enjoyed it, my notes on it are here.

Come on by if you are close.

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